


For Her

by skipper



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Mentions of Cancer, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22166134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skipper/pseuds/skipper
Summary: Some of life's greatest lessons are the hardest to face, and they'll come at the most unexpected times, in the most unexpected places.





	For Her

In the beginning, the tour was incredible. The music, a mixture of the songs from the movie, the television show, plus the music we’d been performing for years. It was fun, it was exhilarating. There were certainly tense, overwhelming moments, but it was to be expected, but the music was what I loved, what I lived for. The music kept me going night after night as we performed, Heath on his guitar, Eric as the frontman, doing a bit of everything. And then finally; me on the right, because the music was what I was. This is what I lived for.

After months apart, each living our own lives for the period of time, the three of us were back together. We performed with our friends as well, but it was our band that were truly being reunited. The entire last year had been about so many individual goals, but the tour made it was as though we were able to see eye to eye once again. But like all things, the glory fell. As the weeks progressed, the joy began to dissipate, the tensions began to rise and the music faded. Music is what I was, it was what I knew, and anything less was a failure, made me a failure.

Every night we were welcomed by fans, cheering and calling our names. Every day hounded by the large number of girls, boys, parents, searching out the chance to say hello, ask for an autograph, a hug. We spent countless hours in interviews answering the same mundane questions over and over again. So many people are concerned with our personal lives, the very ones we wanted to keep quiet, but it didn’t stop any of them from asking. I just wanted to close my eyes and lose myself in the music. It was the music I wrote for me, to calm me, relax me, make me forget all of it, but it was gone as well.

There had always been so many times when we grew tired, truly tired of the public eye, but we kept with it because of our love for the music. Sure, I’ve kept with it more so than the others, we all knew it. I think we all knew that we'd be breaking off doing their own thing eventually. In many ways this tour felt like a final straw for us as a group. We might do another tour, but in all honesty, it was always expected to be short, hitting only the largest cities. But suddenly, the future was bleak. It felt as though I was about to break, to crack, my surface was just a thin piece of glass just waiting for the final push.

All I could think about was the many months of planning had gone into everything, our schedules, and our lives, every day is written down and decided. But that day, the day I’ll never forget, was like so many others, completely planned months ahead of time. Someone said we needed to go to the facility and though we were aware what we would find, it was still so unexpected. Every stress, every complaint that had been plaguing me had dulled; my entire worrisome world nonexistent when I looked into her eyes for the first time.

Amanda, she’d informed me upon prompting; she’d smiled a wide smile despite the tubing, the ones I couldn’t keep from staring at. I’d reached down to her, carefully avoiding the wires, and she had easily pulled me into a hug despite my apprehension. I felt the fear as I leaned close; it was not her, but the tubes, the machines, the very essence of the entire building weighing down on me. I’d been nervous before, but standing before her, her eyes waiting for me to do something, anything; I had never felt so utterly exposed.

The others had left the room, gone with the director to other children, eventually leaving when they couldn't handle it any longer. Amanda, the director said, had specifically requested me, and who was I to argue with the notion. I sat after the awkward hug, a deep silence falling when no words were spoken. Her eyes fell to me between the long winded blinks, the deep purple beneath her eyes revealing her own pain and exhaustion. It was the only color on her face, as though I needed another reminder as to why she was here. I smiled as I noticed the cap on her head; the band emblem knitted onto the side, and without her words, understood her love for us.

The minutes passed but I didn’t speak, I couldn’t. What could I say to appease her pain, her suffering? With a single glance towards her, I slowly understood that she didn’t need the words. Her frail hand had reached for mine where it sat on the side of her bed, my wrist dangling over the railing. She’d grasped my hand with an unexpectedly strong grip, making me chuckle in surprise, and I held on. When my eyes locked with hers, I began to comprehend why we did what we did. Sure, I was in it for the music, but, this was a realization, a confirmation, that sometimes it was much more.

Sitting beside that little girl, the twinkle still present in her eye, I understood the power of music. It didn’t always reside on the tour dates and the fans that came, but the fans that physically couldn’t come. Amanda would never see one of our concerts or stand out in the pouring rain to meet us. She would never be able to see our baseball games or stop us on the street for an autograph; for the rest of her life, she would be confined to that hospital bed. But she still adored us, the few posters taped onto the wall, the knitted cap on her hand, and her sparkling eyes told me so. She didn’t love us for our looks, our personal lives, but in the only way she could, the music.

I felt so helpless to do anything for her, and I desperately wanted to save her from her pain. As I stood to leave that day, my body leaning in for another hug, she breathed her second words to me, but these so much more meaningful than her name. “Thank you,” she’d whispered through a ragged breath. I’d pulled back from the hug, my eyes locking with hers until she could keep my gaze no longer. I was told to leave, yet I didn’t, I couldn’t. Instead, I stood by her bed waiting until she fell asleep, and even then, my feet barely moved me from the room. I had arrived back to the hotel long after dark, my bandmates already in bed and sleeping.

I thought about her words that night, her feeble voice repeating in my mind without pause. I thought of the way she’d held my hand and wore her cap, hiding the only wisps of hair she had. I thought of the way her eyes twinkled, as though oblivious to her suffering. And I thought of the way I felt upon initially entering the building and how I felt at that very moment in my hotel room. I picked up my guitar, setting it on my lap, doing the only thing I could do for her. I wrote those songs, the ones that had unknowingly been in my head as I had sat by her holding her hand, feeling her strength radiate through me.

As the days passed, that’s exactly what I did. I wrote the dozens of songs, for Amanda, for the others suffering with her, for the fans that would never make it to our concerts, our events, performances. The days did not seem quite as stressful, the schedules quite as frustrating and the hounding so irritating. I still wanted my peace and quiet, but it was different now, I couldn’t explain it outside of saying her name, but I knew it was different. I _was_ different.

I suppose I’d always known cancer was a nasty disease, one I couldn’t even begin to understand. I didn’t know the months, the years Amanda had spent struggling, hoping and praying for a cure. I only knew the Amanda from the hours I spent in her hospital room on that day.

But I still felt the pain, maybe not that day, but weeks later, the day the letter came. As I lifted the flap, the newspaper clippings fell, ones that included her name, her picture and the life she left behind. When my tears shed, I truly understood, music was not about me or what I needed at any given time. But every note, every chord was for them, for anyone needing its comfort, but, after that day, it was especially for her.


End file.
